Thoughts on someone leaving harsh reviews on your novel?

[georgelee5786]

Gonna slide on em

 

[LesserCodex]

If the review focuses on parts of the story with good reasons to be harsh, then I welcome them as they help me improve myself and become better. If it's just a spiteful sentence, then I am going to find them and live in their walls, and one more body will show up on the news.

 

[OscarTlau]

I've actually been holding off harsh reviews because I thought authors would dislike them. Who wants to be suddenly pounded into a pulp when you haven't even asked for it?

But I recently found a couple scathing reviews(?) written to the author, not the reader. That...surprised me. I didn't know that was ok.

I've come to this site from NU. That site is filled with translations, and so nobody writes reviews hoping to get the author's attention. That's why my reviews are written more as a guide for other readers. Usually in cases where the story doesn't have a proper synopsis, or when it gives something drastically different from what was promised. I just add no, this is what the story is actually about!

But now I'm pondering whether to start plummeling random authors. I hope people don't think I'm being mean...

Are you guys ok with this? Or nah?

Any review is a good review.. Even if they are Gordon Ramsey type.
I don't mind if they're simply hating for the purpose or giving a harsh review cuz its the person they are. I will simply get my ahh off the ground and analyse their reviews and think if there are anything i could change.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I've actually been holding off harsh reviews because I thought authors would dislike them. Who wants to be suddenly pounded into a pulp when you haven't even asked for it?

But I recently found a couple scathing reviews(?) written to the author, not the reader. That...surprised me. I didn't know that was ok.

I've come to this site from NU. That site is filled with translations, and so nobody writes reviews hoping to get the author's attention. That's why my reviews are written more as a guide for other readers. Usually in cases where the story doesn't have a proper synopsis, or when it gives something drastically different from what was promised. I just add no, this is what the story is actually about!

But now I'm pondering whether to start plummeling random authors. I hope people don't think I'm being mean...

Are you guys ok with this? Or nah?

If the work merits it, then yes. I would like to imagine most of mine is not that bad, but it probably is.

If I ever do a full review, I'll probably follow the Shadis model - Shadis was a games-industry magazine that had two types of reviews: Capsule reviews, that had to be mostly positive, and could be at most three paragraphs long (they just would not print mostly negative or entirely negative reviews in capsule form), and full reviews, that had to follow this structure:
Opening paragraph - list product and author(s) or publisher, three good points, three bad points, and the reviewer's initial impression.
Then one paragraph for each of the six points.
Then a final paragraph, restating the six points, listing which of the six was most important in shaping the critic's review, and the critic's final evaluation. The negative paragraphs could be brutal (and one of the reviews they published even had a POSITIVE paragraph that was kind of vicious - but the critic's evaluation was mostly positive anyway!).

 

[dukerino]

A lot of negative reviews I've seen go too far into a spiteful fun or an over-emotional reaction. Like ones that celebrate themselves or try to be funny. I'm guilty of this too, and it's fun to write and read. But it's probably not kind in the long run. Not to get all Ratatouille about it.

 

[Clo]

I got a DNF review recently. They explained why they had to stop reading, and didn't just trash my story.

I am honestly happy. May their review serve as a aignpost to other readers. Maybe they will like what they see. Maybe it will make them run away.

In both cases, the reader's feelings and opinions are valid.

They didn't point out bad English or spelling mistakes, but just things they didn't like.
Not realistic enough,
Too many POVs/too slow

For some readers, those might be pros rather than cons.

 

[Valmond]

I also think reviews have to have certain limits.

What I mean is this:

• If you review a book after 1 to 5 chapters or with another metric, below 15-20% of the actual chapter count?
  • Then you better be critiquing the grammar and other related issues and not about the plot.

I won't take anything else seriously in reviews that come under such a short chapter count because nobody, not even Sherlock Reading Holmes, could discern the plot of a 100+ chapter story from just 5. Even if they turn out right, it simply isn't right to do so because there is no guarantee.

Plus, many times, what I see is not critiquing a book or a story. It is nothing but bitching about what the reader didn't like. Usually, what others call critiquing something is just complaining. They are not offering examples or insight into why they think it doesn't work in context with the story. There are no possible examples of how it could be made work or comparisons with other works where the same thing worked. It is usually just:

"I don't like it, so it's stupid."

So, once again, disliking something doesn't mean you are critiquing it. It is bitching about it.

I especially hate those reviews that come early, predicting what the book is about, wholly off the mark. Because they left the review early, they never realized that their words were proved wrong later on regarding the plot and their critique of said plot. But their damage had already been done and sent possible readers away because they began crying in the name of critiquing.

It was what made me ignore all reviews on movies, shows, games, books, and everything else. People bitch and call it critiquing. I don't believe anything, only my two eyes. Ratings are worthless.

And if I dislike something, I don't stick around, just move on.

You’ve pretty much touched a point. Many people are not good at clearly getting across their thoughts.

They are more than likely only able to perceive what they like or dislike, not what the story is actually about.

This is a much harder skill to learn than it appears. Another thing is, people just have to learn to move on.

Everyone has their likes and dislike, you can much better use your time trying to find something you like than try to bring down something you dislike.

On top of this, people jump to conclusions a lot. In the current media landscape, everything is pretty much instant gratification.

I’ve encountered many times, when someone complained about something, just for it to be answered either a few lines later or the next chapter.

And that is the simple stuff. My more complex stuff are split between two halves. Things introduced in the first half of the book does not conclude until the second half of the book.

 

[Zagaroth]

*Critique* should go in the comments, scathing or not. This is where you talk *to* the author.

Note: simply insulting is never okay.

*Reviews* should be aimed at potential readers, and should try to be honest about both the good and the bad.

 

[beast_regards]

"Strange game. Only winning move is not to play. Would you rather like to play chess?"

I don't mind the reviews themselves as much as what they cause.

Stories have flaws, authors have flaws, and the stories written by amateur authors without formal education in creative writing, in their spare time, would be ... flawed... for lack of better words.

Of course there are not that ... good. We, deep down, all know that.

However, keep in mind, by writing the negative review, you aren't merely hurting the author's ego: you are hurting his or her chance to be ever read by anyone, making his or her effort essentially pointless.

Look at it from the author's perspective.

People don't try stories with bad reviews, and you, as the author, don't improve from negative feedback left there - you die from it. Or rather, your story does. It doesn't matter if you fix the problems the review mentioned. It doesn't even matter if the problems mentioned are even real. The review could ruin you, making the effort pointless for something you do in your spare time. There is no way to delete the review, only to delete the story....

It's a strange game. Only winning move is not to play.

This is further worsened because the reviews are often tied to some form of an algorithm that affects the visibility of the story, making the effort to actually improve the writing itself pointless. The core of the problem isn't bad writing, the core of the problem is bad reviews. It's better to have the bad story with good reviews, than the good story with bad reviews. So, you address the core of the problem - reviews.

Yes, you could act with the thick skin against all the death threats and insults, but reviews don't hurt because of what they say. They hurt because of that number above them that is equal to the damage it causes.

This is why I hate the Royal Road so much. It's a bad game, the only winning move is not to play.

Yes, you could argue that if your story would good the reviews would be good, but it is simply not true. It's against the default behaviour of the Internet, or even the logic of it, and you wouldn't need to create a new throwaway account for every negative review you want to post, or have a separate voting accounts, etc. The reviews aren't some fair, objective judge, they are the damage you deal to the story, and on the big sites, it is indeed damage per second.

 

[RivCA]

I’m a relatively new writer to this space, but I’ve been writing for myself (Dungeons & Dragons and whatnot) for around thirty years. (Yes, my earlier works suck. No, I don’t have copies.) However, if a reviewer attacks the author, such is usually done in bad faith. Unload your arsenal on my work, as it’s the only way I know how I can improve, but unless I know you personally, I would usually ask you to fuck off and take those shots at me on the forums, not on my writings.

Am I perfect? Hell no. I’ve gone to war on a couple of Patreon forums before, and when I make my attacks, I use the information provided by the various authors over words said.

 

[sbdrag]

Yeah, this was my main concern. If I review a novel, it means I love the heck out of it, I just think it could be better.

Maybe the pace drags in a spot. Maybe they go overly flowery. Or maybe their transitions feel abrupt. But I don't want to drag down the writer or do anything detrimental to them while I'm having fun. It makes me feel sad that some other readers may not read the novel due to my review.

This helps. I think I'll do that instead.

As a note - most authors getting a "harsh" review likely aren't going to realize you're enjoying the story, especially if you only talk about the flaws. Others have already done a good job covering the "critique vs complaining" aspect, but just as an additional note, reviews that don't include what you like about the book or how much you're enjoying it won't get your enjoyment across through critique by itself.

 

[beast_regards]

Another thing to point out is how the reviews work in the professional publishing, or at least, how they worked before the Internet become Internet we know.

In professional, i.e. traditional publishing, the supreme arbiter of the story's quality and author's skill is not the reviewer, it's the editor. A person, supposedly highly qualified (but not always), employed by the publishing house to veto the stories which, according to the editor, don't have the chance to earn the house money they want. It is him (or her, more often) who has final, ultimate control of what could, or couldn't be in the story, and if they decide that your sci-fi would be better selling as the contemporary romance, they throw it out into the bin, and force you to write what they want. This process is called "editorial review" and has nothing to do with the "reviews" we see on the forums like this. And if you are curious about where all the writing advice came from, it is not by the people who succeeded and their book sold well, it's from people who rejected them. Editors. An ultimate egopolis, written not as advice to do better, be better, but an ultimate guide how to please the ego of one arbiter with too much power.

However, if you passed through their check, your entire job is to write, and they all the pesky job to get your book on the shelves, and to be read, is entirely up to the publisher, and put in hands of the entirely different department: marketing.

And one tool marketing deploy is reviews, which are usually done by either the paid critics or by the marketing people themselves, carefully assembled to maximize sales. Even the all so popular star scale was made up by them to maximize the profits, as the tool of manipulation. No opinions involved, and no way to reach to the author through writing it. In fact, the author is completely insulated from any outside influence, aside from the aforementioned editor forcing changes, and is discouraged from even hearing out the fans, because, well, the editor wouldn't like it.

There is no way for the audience to influence the creative process at all.

Even now, in the time of the Internet, it is mostly the true, and the critics, now called journalist, are ultimately angry that their control over the narrative is slipping away and they couldn't influence the people as much as they would like.

Keep in mind, journalist is political function, and like all politicians, they are in for the power and money. Reviews are still the marketing tool, or propaganda tool if highjacked by the journalists rather than sales, not an opinion. They never were an opinion.

...

None of it applies to us here, since there are no editors, and no publishers.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Another thing to point out is how the reviews work in the professional publishing, or at least, how they worked before the Internet become Internet we know.

And if you are curious about where all the writing advice came from, it is not by the people who succeeded and their book sold well, it's from people who rejected them. Editors. An ultimate egopolis, written not as advice to do better, be better, but an ultimate guide how to please the ego of one arbiter with too much power.

That is only about 80% true. If you go on Substack, there are a lot of non-editors offering advice about how THEY succeeded. And one of the classic books on writing, Strunck and White's Elements of Style was written by E. B. White, at the request of (and edited by) his partner, Strunck, a literature professor (who also did professional editing as a side gig) IIRC.
But the vast majority is definitely from editors.

 

[beast_regards]

That is only about 80% true. If you go on Substack, there are a lot of non-editors offering advice about how THEY succeeded. And one of the classic books on writing, Strunck and White's Elements of Style was written by E. B. White, at the request of (and edited by) his partner, Strunck, a literature professor (who also did professional editing as a side gig) IIRC.
But the vast majority is definitely from editors.

Brandon Sanderson organises lectures on how to write the fantasy, or "magic system", too, but overall, the interaction between the (professional) writer and the reader is often spare, if not existent.

The interaction you see here - "Oh no, you couldn't put this in the book" - is usually one between the editor and the writer, and usually, it's the writer which needs to back down, even though there are exceptions in that too. I suspect the editors would keep their bi.... complaints ... to a minimum if they are interacting with someone famous like Stephen King or aforementioned Brandon Sanderson, as there is the risk that the "star" would slam the door and go to deal with competitors which would accept them, but in most cases writers don't have that much choice.

However, here, you as the reader could interfere with the creation process from the very start, demotivate the writer from continuing, or to even try, and (unlike the editor-writer relationship) there is more than one person to please.

You couldn't please everyone, but you need to, because not only you don't have an editor, you don't have a marketing team writing your reviews either, making the creative process very fragile and easy to disrupt with the negativity, and publishing (posting) process easy to sabotage with the negative reviews which influence the visibility of the story.

Influence of the reviews as marketing remains the same, but this time, it's completely crowd sourced and in hands of people which aren't invested in your success (unlike professional marketing which is paid the share), and people could, and in most cases would, cause irreparable damage to the story by simply disliking it.

Damage is lasting, the "reviews" unremovable and most likely, done with malicious intent. As much as the Royal Road pretends the review bombing doesn't exist, even their rules explicitly mention you shouldn't mention the author activity on forums in reviews. If it was ever lifted, 9 out of the 10 reviews would say "author said something, and I punish him" or "hahahaha, burn b****" or "I want to destroy competition".

This doesn't happen in the professional publishing.

Opinions of the readers are kept separate from the reviews themselves, and while it could cause damage through word of mouth (to the much dismay of the journalists controlling the access media) the influence of the readers isn't that great. At least, not on reviews. In truth, the strictly quid pro quo relationship of the (RR's) review swap is closest to how reviewing usually works for professional. You leave the nice review on my story, and there is some reward for you for doing so.

Yes, I cannot stop anyone from leaving negative reviews, but ...

... it doesn't change anything on the fact that reviews are marketing, and as any marketing they are supposed to help with the sales (views), even at the cost of deceiving the reader.

 

[StoneInky]

Brandon Sanderson organises lectures on how to write the fantasy, or "magic system", too, but overall, the interaction between the (professional) writer and the reader is often spare, if not existent.

The interaction you see here - "Oh no, you couldn't put this in the book" - is usually one between the editor and the writer, and usually, it's the writer which needs to back down, even though there are exceptions in that too. I suspect the editors would keep their bi.... complaints ... to a minimum if they are interacting with someone famous like Stephen King or aforementioned Brandon Sanderson, as there is the risk that the "star" would slam the door and go to deal with competitors which would accept them, but in most cases writers don't have that much choice.

However, here, you as the reader could interfere with the creation process from the very start, demotivate the writer from continuing, or to even try, and (unlike the editor-writer relationship) there is more than one person to please.

You couldn't please everyone, but you need to, because not only you don't have an editor, you don't have a marketing team writing your reviews either, making the creative process very fragile and easy to disrupt with the negativity, and publishing (posting) process easy to sabotage with the negative reviews which influence the visibility of the story.

Influence of the reviews as marketing remains the same, but this time, it's completely crowd sourced and in hands of people which aren't invested in your success (unlike professional marketing which is paid the share), and people could, and in most cases would, cause irreparable damage to the story by simply disliking it.

Damage is lasting, the "reviews" unremovable and most likely, done with malicious intent. As much as the Royal Road pretends the review bombing doesn't exist, even their rules explicitly mention you shouldn't mention the author activity on forums in reviews. If it was ever lifted, 9 out of the 10 reviews would say "author said something, and I punish him" or "hahahaha, burn b****" or "I want to destroy competition".

This doesn't happen in the professional publishing.

Opinions of the readers are kept separate from the reviews themselves, and while it could cause damage through word of mouth (to the much dismay of the journalists controlling the access media) the influence of the readers isn't that great. At least, not on reviews. In truth, the strictly quid pro quo relationship of the (RR's) review swap is closest to how reviewing usually works for professional. You leave the nice review on my story, and there is some reward for you for doing so.

Yes, I cannot stop anyone from leaving negative reviews, but ...

... it doesn't change anything on the fact that reviews are marketing, and as any marketing they are supposed to help with the sales (views), even at the cost of deceiving the reader.

Eh... in webnovels, reviews are also left by readers to help other readers know what to expect. I don't do it often, but if I see a novel that promises to be something it is not, I leave a review telling readers the truth which is not wholly positive. And some people critique books they like, too, but give high stars. So I disagree that reviews are marketing.

But I do see your point too. From the perspective of someone trying to sell their books to as many people as possible, critique is not good. It hurts the author.

I've decided not to do it in the end.

 

[beast_regards]

Eh... in webnovels, reviews are also left by readers to help other readers know what to expect. I don't do it often, but if I see a novel that promises to be something it is not, I leave a review telling readers the truth which is not wholly positive. And some people critique books they like, too, but give high stars. So I disagree that reviews are marketing.

...and that's a problem on its own.

The reviews are used to punish the author for the searches of the reader.

If the reader wants to read the sci-fi, and find contemporary romance, he rates it 1 because he didn't get what he wanted, and that's before the alt-accounts come to play.

The "star system" is the marketing tool, designed to deceive the customer into buying the product for the higher price, promising the vaguely defined quality.

It's a psychological marketing trick, not a scale. It pretends to be a scale, but it is not. No one seriously considers interacting with anything above average, i.e. above 2.5 or 3 star respectively. Everyone interacts only with stories on the scale of 4.5 to 5, with anything below that being invisible, even if by common sense all amateur stories should be merely "above average" in the best-case scenario, and most likely below, because they too were deceived by the psychological trick. That's absurdity of the reviews: here is a scale of 1 - 5, but only 5 matters and rest is bad.

Reviews are marketing. The scale was never supposed to be used to its full extent, only on the upper ranks, as it is ultimately meant to deceive.

If you use the reviews for anything that marketing, you are using a screwdriver for hammering nails.

 

[Tempokai]

I'm winning currently by realizing that I've been doing editorial analysises disguised as roasts lol

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

Depends on the review. I remember a couple reviews that I got for my very first self-published book that absolutely burned it to the ground. I didn't see it back then (and hoo boy did I let them know it) but they were absolutely right. That book was terrible and should never have been made available to the public.

On the other hand, Henry Rider: Clown Hunter only has three reviews on Amazon right now, and one of them is a one star rating that only says "Just a Harley Quin and Joker fanfiction. That says it all. Doesn't get any more then that." That one I'm not okay with because it's objectively incorrect, and could potentially get me in trouble if someone from DC saw it and decided that was enough to justify suing me for copyright infringement. I know the chances of that happening are astronomical, but big companies have sued smaller people for stupider things.

I also got one when I was still on RR where the guy read one chapter and then left a review where he pretended to have a conversation with his "mental interpretation of the author" (ie, me). He described all the different ways my story made him want to puke while I stood there drooling and going "Huh? Whaa?" To absolutely nobody's surprise, I'm sure, when I reported it the RR admins made some noise about not censoring people just because we don't like their opinions, and refused to take it down.

TLDR, it all depends on the tone you take and what the review says.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

On the other hand, Henry Rider: Clown Hunter only has three reviews on Amazon right now, and one of them is a one star rating that only says "Just a Harley Quin and Joker fanfiction. That says it all. Doesn't get any more then that." That one I'm not okay with because it's objectively incorrect, and could potentially get me in trouble if someone from DC saw it and decided that was enough to justify suing me for copyright infringement. I know the chances of that happening are astronomical, but big companies have sued smaller people for stupider things.

Twenty years ago, or more, this would have been a serious concern, but they did get slammed for a few fraudulent cases and would likely look beyond the cover image (though they MIGHT sue the artist, and with enough basis that you might have to change it), unlike the reviewer.

 

[Bartun]

I wouldn't mind if you actually read my story. I'm used to harsh reviews. But reading people bashing my story under the pretense of 'first chapters reviews' just hurts, and doesn't really help much.